Greying Days for Mending Bridges
by applemysteries
Summary: Takes place post-s3. One-shot. Logan POV. Ensemble(ish) fic. "It's every year down the line and Neptune shatters just as many people as it used to."


Disclaimer: I do not own Veronica Mars or its affiliates.

Characters: Logan Echolls, Cindy 'Mac' Mackenzie, Gia Goodman, Dick Casablancas, Trina Echolls, Veronica Mars, Charlie Stone, Wallace Fennel, Lynn Echolls, Aaron Echolls, Parker Lee, Eli 'Weevil' Navarro, Keith Mars, Lilly Kane, Cassidy Casablancas, Madison Sinclair, Abel Koontz, Woody Goodman, and a handful of OC's.

A/N: Told in Logan's POV. All OC's (save for one) are unnamed. This story begins it's timeline countdown when Logan is nineteen, so all the ages are from nineteen on. Spoiler- Logan has his child at the age of 22, meaning they have a 22 year age difference.

* * *

It's ten years down the line and his daughter's favorite fruit is pear.

It's twenty years down the line and his daughter likes to wrap leather belts around her arms and inject heroin into her veins.

It's three years down the line and his one night stand appears and tells him that she is pregnant.

It's still three years down the line, nearly four, and his one night stand clutches his hand for dear life as their daughter enters the world.

It's ten years down the line when he bumps into Veronica again.

It's two years down the line when Dick crashes into a blue minivan, killing a father with two kids.

It's every year down the line and he's haunted.

It's six years down the line and he spends all night holding Trina's hand while she vomits up sleeping pills.

It's one year down the line and he comes home to find Dick, Mac, and Gia all tear-stained and screaming at the top of their lungs.

It's one year down the line and he hugs all of them for comfort and puts them to bed and drinks until 10am.

It's five years down the line and he tells his one night stand that they will never get married.

It's eleven years down the line and he sits down with Trina and Charlie for dinner.

It's thirteen years down the line when he kisses Veronica again.

It's thirteen years down the line when he sleeps with her again.

It's thirteen years down the line when she runs again.

It's seven years down the line when he gets into his last fist fight.

It's eleven years down the line when he's arrested (and released) for the last time.

It's twenty three years down the line when his daughter sobs that she let her boyfriend hit her because she loved him.

It's twenty three years down the line when he tells his daughter harshly that abuse will never equal love.

It's eight years down the line and Trina sobs into his arms and begs for forgiveness.

It's every year down the line and he lights candles in remembrance.

It's sixteen years down the line and his daughter asks questions about his parents.

It's three years down the line and Mac notices perfect circles inking his upper arms.

It's fifteen years down the line and he can't explain it, but he's very grateful Mac, Dick, and Gia are his friends.

It's eight years down the line and he runs into Parker by chance.

It's eight years down the line and Parker stares at his daughter and his one night stand as if she can't believe her eyes.

It's twenty four years down the line and Veronica calls in tears to tell him her father is dead.

It's twenty four years down the line and he stands in somber silence at Keith Mars funeral.

It's nine years down the line and he watches, grinning, as his daughter showers petals onto wedding guests.

It's nine years down the line and he hugs his one night stand in sincere congratulations on her commitment to matrimony.

It's twelve years down the line and his daughter breaks her arm skiing and he's so sure he can't do this.

It's two years down the line and Mac is diagnosed with severe depression.

It's twenty years down the line and he walks into his daughter's room to find Mac coloring a section of his daughter's hair purple.

It's thirty years down the line and Eli 'Weevil' Navarro is shot and killed, trying to prevent a bank robbery.

It's thirty years down the line and Veronica clutches him, desperate and lonely.

It's thirty years down the line and they bury Eli Navarro into the ground.

It's twenty six years down the line and his one night stand convinces his daughter to go to rehab.

It's twenty six years down the line and his sobbing daughter confesses that the urges are still there. He tells her they always will be.

It's fourteen years down the line and his one night stand gets pregnant again.

It's ten years down the line and he is another girlfriend dead.

It's seven years down the line and Mac takes too many sleeping pills and chops off all of her hair and wakes up hysterical in the hospital, a bandage covering an angry, red slit.

It's eight years down the line and Gia calls him at 3am because Mac's done it again, but Mac holds both of their hands and promises that it's nothing but a fashion statement.

It's thirteen years down the line and his daughter is best friends with a blonde haired, blue eyed girl named Lilly.

It's eighteen years down the line and his daughter cries because Lilly moves away. He tries and fails not to be relieved.

It's nine years down the line and Gia miscarries four months in.

It's six years down the line and Charlie gets married without inviting him.

It's six years down the line and Dick, Mac, and Gia come up with a completely fucking stupid plan, which involves camping out in front of Charlie's house until Charlie agrees to see him.

It's six years down the line and after nineteen hours of Dick being utterly inconspicuous Charlie and his wife threaten to call the police.

It's six years down the line and Mac and Gia get Charlie to agree to getting coffee with him later that week.

It's seven years down the line and he and Charlie finally exchange Christmas cards.

It's ten years down the line and he finds out Trina and Veronica have been exchanging emails for the past three years.

It's two years down the line and he's woken up at two a.m. to a screaming argument. He wanders out, blurry eyed and ruffled hair to catch the tail end of it, which involves Mac striking Dick hard across the mouth and storming away.

It's two years down the line and he and Dick and Gia find Mac laying perfectly still on the hotel roof.

It's two years down the line and the four of them lay on the top of the roof where so many things have died until the sun comes up and their skin starts to blister.

It's eighteen years down the line and his daughter spends an entire weekend watching everything Lynn or Aaron had ever been in.

It's eighteen years down the line and she prattles on and on about which movies and such of theirs were her favorite.

It's eighteen years down the line and he somehow gets roped into watching all of her favorite Lynn/Aaron selections with her.

It's eighteen years down the line and his daughter pauses _The Long Haul _halfway through and watches him cry, nervously asking if he's okay.

It's eighteen years down the line and he watches the movies once with his daughter, once with Trina, once with Dick, Mac, and Gia, and one by himself. He cries everytime.

It's twenty nine years down the line and his daughter gets pregnant and decides to abort it.

It's twenty nine years down the line, immediately following the procedure, and he, his daughter, and his one night stand clutch each other tightly as possible and sob.

It's thirteen years down the line and his daughter asks him point blank if he ever truly wanted children. He hugs her fiercely and tells her no.

It's seventeen years down the line and he and Gia write a best selling novel with contributions from Mac.

It's one year down the line and he has Wallace Fennel in two of his classes.

It's one year down the line and Wallace tells him bluntly that if he ever harms one of Wallace's friends again, he'll personally kick his ass.

It's one year down the line and he can't help but smirk and wish him luck.

It's every year down the line and he still has a death wish; he's just gotten better at stifling it.

It's four years down the line and he weeps uncontrollably when his daughter says her first words.

It's four years down the line and he does the same thing when he sees her take her first steps.

It's six years down the line and Gia asks him to teach her how to sail so that she can impress her douchebag boyfriend.

It's six years down the line and Gia pushes her douchebag boyfriend over the boat and sails back to Neptune without him.

It's six years down the line and he wraps Gia up in a bear hug and spins her around repeatedly because he is just so fucking proud of her.

It's twenty one years down the line and he watches his daughter graduate from high school, beaming.

It's seven years down the line and he learns of Veronica's engagement.

It's seven years down the line and he just goes numb. Vibrating, kicking, screaming, thrashing.

It's seven years down the line and he drinks until his eyes go blurry, drives to the River Stix and goes in.

It's seven years down the line and he wakes up in the hospital, body throbbing in pain from every source imaginable.

It's seven years down the line, he's been in the hospital for a week. Dick, Mac, and Gia are all so tenderly mad and fragile with him and no one will tell him what happened.

It's every year down the line, past the age of 26, and that night comes fragmented in bits and pieces. He kicked ass that night, destructive and deadly. For the rest of his life if he makes a fist it pulses with pain and vengeance.

It's seven years down the line and Dick and Mac force him to promise never to get into another fight.

It's seven years down the line, almost eight, and Veronica calls him, for the first time, to inform him that the engagement is off. They both sit silently on the phone, wanting, needing, to say so much more before he finally goes, "You'd never last in a marriage anyway" and is rewarded with the dialtone. It really isn't a surprise that they don't speak for another three years.

It's eight years down the line and his daughter asks him why he never married her mother.

It's eight years down the line and he tells his daughter that the only two people he'd ever thought about marrying he'd met, and fell in love with, before the age of thirteen.

It's still eight years down the line and his daughter cocks her head and smiles sweetly, asking if he means the two blonde girls she's seen long-haired and giggling in photographs. He tussles her hair, wondering how in the hell a four year old has gotten to be so mature and responds with a yes. But the cold, hard truth, which he doesn't tell her, is that he hasn't wanted to marry them in years, not since he turned nineteen.

It's twenty three years down the line and for one of the only classes his daughter genuinely attends she has decided to do a research paper detailing the effects of corruption, using her real life example of Neptune.

It's twenty three years down the line and his daughter has clippings of old newspapers strung all throughout the house. He searches through the articles for familiar titles and finds what he expected- **Lilly Kane Murdered. Abel Koontz Arrested. Lynn Echolls: Dead or Alive? Abel Koontz: Not Guilty? Aaron Echolls Arrested for the Murder of Lilly Kane. Felix Toombs Murdered. Logan Echolls: Like Father, Like Son. Logan Echolls Acquitted. Bus Full of Students Goes Overboard. Woody Goodman: Child Molester. Aaron Echolls Acquitted. Cassidy Casablancas: Victim or Murderer? Aaron Echolls Found Dead. **and lastly, **Hearst College: Rape Campus. **He sighs, aching and tired and desperate to be dead, and finds his daughter. He sets the articles down in front of her and asks, "Do you want to talk about it?" She gives him a small, melancholy smile and a fleeting kiss. "No."

It's every year down the line and he understands better than he should how it is possible to love someone and hate them all at the same time.

It's nine years down the line and his girlfriend of three months is diagnosed with stage four lung cancer.

It's ten years down the line and his girlfriend has had a long and brutal seven month battle, but eventually she lets the cancer win.

It's twenty six years down the line and he finally has his first grey hair. He'd expected it to arrive much sooner, given the circumstances.

It's seven years down the line and his one night stand meets the person who will become her husband.

It's thirteen years down the line and he is fighting with Veronica, like usual. He tells her that if she so much as mentions Madison Sinclair he will leave and that will be the end of everything. She blinks, wounded, and kisses him fiercely.

It's three years down the line and he is watching his one night stand and his newborn daughter sleep for the first time. It is the happiest moment of his life.

It's every year down the line and Neptune shatters just as much people as it used to.

It's every year down the line and people slowly, carefully learn how to cope and rebuild.

It's every year down the line and he and his loved ones are broken. It's every year down the line and he and his loved ones are healing, which is all he can really ask for anyway.


End file.
